Web Series Wednesday: Advocate

The Series: When Lucifer becomes fed up with his public image, he hires a publicist to rebrand him.

Advocate is a West Australian web series, written and Directed by David Harris. The pilot episode was the winner of the Best Screenplay award at the NextGen Webfest, as part of the 2017 Revelation International Film Festival.

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Article by David Harris

Filmmaking is collaboration.

A project can be born from the simplest of ideas. In the case of Advocate, I had the term Devil’s Advocate in my head for one reason or another and pondered, “What if someone was actually advocating for the Devil? What if Satan had a publicist?”

Then comes a silly little script which sits in a drawer for twelve months.

Then comes news that your cinematographer and close friend is leaving for New York. That’s the talented Joel Crane, who innocently says, “We need to have one more go around before I leave. What have you got?”

Then comes the bandying about of names.

Jeremy Levi as Lucifer, the everyman Devil with an inferiority complex? Kiran Wilson playing a failed stage magician who also happens to be the nephew of Lucifer?

We all quickly agree; these are things that must be seen.

Next? Auditions. The search for the right actress to play the “straight man”, a foil for the absurdity of her cast-mates. Enter Kylie Maree. She’s better than the role, I have to admit.

The concept was an easy one to sell. After all, why do we hate Satan? He does our dirty work. He does what society can’t do for itself – delivering true justice and eternal punishment for the wicked. This is a guy who is just doing his job. He’s one rebranding campaign away from being beloved.

And before you know it, there’s a producer and a whole crew of people who you’ve met and come to love on previous projects. People you couldn’t imagine working without. And they’ve all come for the same reasons.

To collaborate.

To create.

The credit roll is important. All our names are stamped all over this thing. And that’s the way it should be. No one person is responsible for this.